In November, China’s import volumes of semi-finished steel amounted to 640,000 mt, much higher compared to the 170,000 mt shipped to the country in October, and also indicates a sharp rise in year on year growth – 2,964 percent, according to the monthly import and export data issued by the Chinese customs authorities.
Market participants expect that semis import volumes will be still significant in December and some slowdown is predicted for January-February due to slower billet purchases. “Nobody will buy big billet volumes at higher prices at the moment,” a Chinese trader said, adding that the trading may resume in January before the Chinese New Year. At the same time some interest for slab purchases is still there in China as HRC prices in the local market are still high, which may support overall semis import quantities in coming months.
In the January-November period of the current year, China’s import volumes of semi-finished steel amounted to 2.19 million mt, up 131.8 percent year on year, 64.5 percentage points faster than that recorded in the January-October period of the year. It is expected that semis imports to reach 2.5 million mt in the whole 2019 year and the trend will persist in 2020, though volumes can be somewhat lower in Q1 due to slowdown in the local longs steel market in China, which resulted in lower activity in billet imports.